Nov 4(ABC): Today’s AI systems are quickly evolving to become humans’ new best friend. We now have AIs that can concoct award-winning whiskey, write poetry, and help doctors perform extremely precise surgical operations. But one thing they can’t do — which is, on the surface, far simpler than all those other things — is use common sense.
Common sense is different from intelligence in that it is usually something innate and natural to humans that helps them navigate daily life, and cannot really be taught. In 1906, philosopher G. K. Chesterton wrote that “common sense is a wild thing, savage, and beyond rules.”
So no, robots can’t use common sense — yet. But thanks to current efforts in the field, we can now measure an AI’s core psychological reasoning ability, bringing us one step closer.
So why does it matter if we teach AI common sense?
Really it comes down to the fact that common sense will make AI better at helping us solve real-world issues. Many argue that AI-driven solutions designed for complex problems, like diagnosing Covid-19 treatments for example, often fail, as the system can’t readily adapt to a real-world situation where the problems are unpredictable, vague, and not defined by rules.